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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27785869">on ghosts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VacuumTan/pseuds/VacuumTan'>VacuumTan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Animal Death, Character Study, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Slash, also uhhh sylvain and dedue dispose of a body my dudes, it's dimitri what do you expect</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:14:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27785869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VacuumTan/pseuds/VacuumTan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Perhaps he might be the most bloodthirsty spirit Faerghus has ever brought forth, really. He roams the chapel to the sound of rattling metal and the smell of death and rot surrounding him. His face is gaunt, pale, and contorted in a pitiful sort of rage. His whispers and mutters well into the night, as though he never sleeps. As if his fellow ghosts won’t let him rest.</i><br/> <br/> </p>
<p>  <i>And it’s weird. He might as well be a face-snatcher, too, because Sylvain could swear that he looks a lot like a boy he used to know.</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>sylvain thinks about ghosts.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier &amp; Dedue Molinaro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>on ghosts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>quick heads up, there's a lot of death-imagery and mentions of corpses, as well as a dead animal/an animal getting killed in here, so if that's not for you, please steer clear of this story!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>i.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With the Pegasus Moon comes a cold icy enough to blanket even Garreg Mach with a thin layer of snow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s nothing compared to northern Faerghus, where winter draws on endlessly and spring is unkind. Here, the snow falls in tiny flakes that cover the grass like powdered sugar. It glitters in the dying lamplight, silently settling on the ground as the night draws on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s painfully quiet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Any soldier would know to not to trust the quiet after five years of war. Murderers can hide well under the cover of the night. Ambushes may lie in the wait where you can’t see them yet. Better sleep with a knife under your pillow and listen to the silence as though it were your favourite song. Goddess forbid you may find an offbeat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>War begets sleepless nights and fitful sleep. Tonight seems to be a night of little sleep, if any at all. The courtyard in front of the officers’ academy gathers more and more dusted snow as Sylvain stands and watches it fall. His sleepwear and the thin blanket thrown over his shoulders do a poor job of keeping him properly warm, but he is used to the cold. And he’s survived even worse things, besides.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maybe, were he younger, he would have found someone to keep him company for the night by now—to warm his bed, to thoroughly exhaust him, and to chase the sleeplessness away. But he isn’t twenty anymore, and he doubts he’d find any genuine comfort in it with things as they are. He can’t recall if there ever was a time where it was about comfort at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s not comfortable, standing in the cold with his sleep pants tucked into his unlaced boots and his bare feet surrounded by coarse lining. Nothing is comfortable. War isn’t comfortable.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain is tired.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He steps out onto the grass. The snow is so thin it doesn’t even crunch under his feet. The sky is a perfect, pitch black—the kind of colour that folktales from back home would use as the backdrop for fantastical stories about spirits that come for you in the night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>An eternity ago, when things had been easier, Mercedes would occasionally recount some of those tales. She would scare the fainter of heart, like Annette or Ashe, and entertain everyone else with a good story for the night. She hasn’t told any tales ever since everyone reconvened a few months ago, though. It isn’t the time or place to speak of ghosts. They all have their own ghosts now, and the most terrifying of all of them haunts their thoughts and the monastery day in and day out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps he might be the most bloodthirsty spirit Faerghus has ever brought forth, really. He roams the chapel to the sound of rattling metal and the smell of death and rot surrounding him. His face is gaunt, pale, and contorted in a pitiful sort of rage. His whispers and mutters well into the night, as though he never sleeps. As if his fellow ghosts won’t let him rest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And it’s weird. He might as well be a face-snatcher, too, because Sylvain could swear that he looks a lot like a boy he used to know.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But it’s still painfully quiet. And Sylvain is still tired. And no iron clatters, and no mutters are to be heard, and it almost doesn’t smell like the blood of enemy soldiers, either.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The snow catches in his hair, and his breath fogs up in the air. Everyone has their own ghosts now, and Sylvain has been cultivating an entire army of them since long before the war. They were born somewhere between a village girl’s thighs and the give of his brother’s flesh when he drove his lance between his ribs. It’s almost funny how cathartic the horror of it all sometimes feels.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maybe Sylvain is long since gone, too. Maybe he died at the bottom of a well, or froze in the wilderness, or bled to death on the inside. <em>Something</em> within him definitely did die. He’s no less of a ghost than what lurks in the shadows of the cathedral.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But his haunting grounds are much colder, and quiet as death. Sylvain wipes the molten snow from his lashes and pulls his blanket tighter around his shoulders. He probably won’t catch any sleep, but he still steps back from the grass, and into the corridor leading to the great hall, and eventually, back into his room. By then, he’s almost dry.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>ii.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There is a sense of abject horror to watching his prince crush a rat in his hands. The poor thing’s bones snap and crack, and there’s no mercy to the grip around its limp little body until its guts come spilling out. Its blood drips onto the floor in slow droplets, looking like liquid tar in the moonlight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nuisance,” booms the vengeful ghost wearing an old friend’s face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain sits in one of the pews towards the back of the cathedral, silently watching. The sun had set only about two hours ago. The altar at the very front is covered in snow, glowing a strange blue colour where the moon shines through the broken roof.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The ghost slowly skulks towards it. His movements are sluggish and tired like a dying animal’s, and he ever so carefully places the rat’s carcass atop the altar as though it were a sacrifice to the Goddess. He mumbles something, so quietly that Sylvain has no hope of making out a single word.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It almost looks like he is praying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But that can’t be it. Rather than the Goddess, he must be trying to appease his ghosts—his father, his mother, an entire army and Glenn Fraldarius. <em>Dedue</em>. Everyone is familiar with what haunts him by now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain carefully studies the hunched over form at the altar. The moonlight makes the patches of ratty white fur draped around his shoulders shine like the snow surrounding him. Not a hair moves. He is entirely still, and hopefully unlikely to turn around.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So Sylvain stands up, as slowly and quietly as possible. He hasn’t yet taken off his armour from the day’s routine scouting mission, and the plates of it scrape softly in the cathedral’s silence. It’s barely noise, but it’s apparently loud enough for a wounded, paranoid beast to hear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Who’s there?” he snarls, turning, and his bared teeth and icy, singular eye glint silver. He scours the darkness before him like a predator. Then, he steps forward. His boots clink against the floor with every heavy footfall.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain stands rooted to the spot. There is no point in running—if he did, surely, the prince would be onto him in an instant. So he slowly forces his legs to move, one after the other. He steps out into the corridor between the pews, hands raised, palms open.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s just me,” says Sylvain, not daring to make eye-contact.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The clinking of armoured boots against the floor’s tiling continues, grows ever closer. Sylvain breathes evenly, staring at his feet, until the steps come to a halt. The overpowering smells of filth, sweat, blood, death and decay surround him and he almost wants to gag.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why are you here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain feels a smile strain his lips, out of habit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know, honestly. I just wandered in here. Guess I’m a bit restless.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He raises his eyes as if to prove his honesty. Usually, he makes sure not to look directly into the face before him. He doesn’t like having to acknowledge—beyond a doubt, beyond plausible deniability—that this is Dimitri. But at the same time, this wounded animal, this little boy from his childhood, deserves to be looked at, and be it only to set his frail mind at ease.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Restless,” echoes Dimitri. “What do you know about restlessness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain swallows and holds Dimitri’s eye. “Nothing at all, Your Highness,” he says, exaggeratedly blithe. He begins to lower his still raised hands. “I was just about to leave, anyways.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In a blink, Dimitri seizes his right wrist. He holds it up with a grip that could crush Sylvain’s gauntlet and bones alike were it just an iota tighter. His rank breath fans across Sylvain’s face. “Do you take me for a fool?” he snarls.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Never, Your Highness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri glowers at him. “Then do you really think I would let you reach for whatever weapon you’re carrying?” He indicates towards Sylvain’s lower body with a tilt of his head. “Should I just sit patiently and wait for you to stab me in the back?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not carrying any weapons,” replies Sylvain. The hand around his wrist tightens threateningly. “I swear I am not. I fight for you every day. I have no reason to hurt you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Let us pretend you weren’t a filthy liar,” Dimitri jeers. “So what if you have no reason to hurt me? Do you think people need a <em>reason</em> to kill?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain can’t help but remember the rat, squeezed to death in the same iron grip that is currently holding his hand up. His eyes flicker towards the altar. “Maybe not.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That seems to satisfy Dimitri. He grins, and the shadows passing over his face bring out the monster quite well. “So you admit as much,” he says. “But let me tell you something. I won’t let you kill me, yet. Not before I get to hold that woman’s head in my own two hands. The dead are helpless. They cannot act upon their thirst for revenge. So I must not join them before then.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course, Your Highness,” Sylvain replies. The smell around him is slowly making him nauseous. He still takes a deep breath. “But I need you to understand that I’m not here to kill you. Or harm you in any way for that matter. I don’t have as much as a butter knife on me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And isn’t that a shame.” The fingers around Sylvain’s wrist tighten just a bit more. Even through the padding below his armour, it hurts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Please let me go, Your Highness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri stares, but looks right through him. “You couldn’t kill me if you wanted to,” he says. “But know that <em>I</em> could crush you like vermin. That I <em>will</em> crush you like vermin, if you ever scutter back in here and hide in the darkness like this.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And do you really think you would you enjoy killing me like that?” Sylvain asks. He would bet that there’s no way he would—in a moment of clarity, he would realise what he’s done. He would have to live with the knowledge that he had murdered someone close to him, for no good reason. That he’d become what he despises most. That Sylvain’s ghost would come for Dimitri’s head, and Dimitri’s head alone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The hand around his wrist goes slack. Then it drops away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri averts his eye, looks towards the grand portal at the back of the cathedral. His shoulders and jaw tense up. “Leave,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “Don’t come back.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain nods, and cradles his right hand close to his chest. Wordlessly, he walks past his prince, and doesn’t turn to look back even once. He pulls the portal open only far enough to just slip through, and only once he has an inch of solid wood between himself and Dimitri does he dare release a breath he didn’t know he was holding.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The night is cold, and the snow on the bridge is frozen over where it’s been pushed aside in heaps. Sylvain shivers and breathes shakily. Funny. Almost as if he’d seen a ghost.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks down at his wrist—properly examines it in the moonlight. There are four finger-shaped indents in his gauntlet, spanning three individual plates. The dents in the metal almost feel like Dimitri’s grip is still there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s smeared with blood and rat-guts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>iii.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world seems to run on quid pro quo these days. Perhaps it is a byproduct of war. If you keep on taking and taking from one party, you can eventually begin to give back to another in equal parts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ferdinand von Aegir and his trusty steed cheerfully bleed out on a stiflingly warm spring afternoon. In turn, Dedue comes back from the dead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And he must have brought back <em>some</em> part of Dimitri from the underworld along with him, because in a moment of clarity, with shaking hands clasped around his most trusted vassal’s forearms, the tremor in the prince’s voice sounds almost human. One ghost has returned—a living, breathing thing, instead of a bloodthirsty facsimile that lurks in the darkness of Dimitri’s mind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the time they regroup at Garreg Mach, the spell is broken.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Nothing truly changes, except that the spectre haunting the monastery grounds now has a shadow following it around. At least the nights are milder now, so Dedue’s stalwart vigils are not bitten by frost nor covered in snow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain sits with him, one night, in the third row of pews from the front. A few candles around them remain lit. Sylvain’s gauntlet has long since been fixed and Dimitri pays neither of them any mind, either way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s good to know that you’re watching over him,” Sylvain says, lowly. “None of us really managed to.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dedue gives him a curious sideways glance, but doesn’t ask him to elaborate. He just straightens in his seat and sighs. “I would never mind looking out for His Highness,” he says, “especially when I am, arguably, to blame for his current state.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you, though?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The dead have always had a firm grip on his conscience. And I left him to think that I had died. That yet another life had been laid down for him. It was the cruellest thing I could have done.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain purses his lips, stalls by glancing around the empty cathedral. “Maybe you’re right,” he says. Dedue nods grimly. It’s funny. He’s younger than Sylvain, and so severe. “But I still think you did the right thing. Goddess knows what all of us would be doing by now, were His Highness gone for good.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri mutters something to himself, almost loud enough to be intelligible from where they’re sitting, and starts to pick at a heap of debris. Dedue watches him like a hawk, and maybe one day, his efforts will be rewarded. Sylvain wonders how that would even work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Silence stretches on between them, only filled with vague muttering and the scraping of stones and plate mail. “Well,” says Sylvain eventually, “and then, there’s still that sliver of a hope that he’ll actually come around. Take the throne, become the king we need. Keep Faerghus from falling apart.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dedue’s lips press into a firm line. He slowly tears his gaze away from Dimitri and meets Sylvain’s eye. “Is that really what you think?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I want to, at least. Don’t you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He pauses. “Of course. There is not a doubt in my mind,” Dedue settles on. “Though I do not think there is a magical cure for what ails His Highness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It almost makes Sylvain laugh. “No,” he says instead, “there really isn’t.” And it’s understandable, and relatable—all of them are messes in their own right. War does that to a person. Sylvain has no trouble admitting that he might be the biggest mess of them all, has been for a long time. But unlike him, Dimitri used to be <em>kind</em>. He had no time to properly get used to all the vitriol being pumped into his system, had no time to build up a resistance to the poison, and was promptly killed from the inside out for it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dedue shifts in his seat, looks back towards their prince. He has stopped his aimless digging by now, instead staring off into space.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“At the very least, he is alive,” says Dedue, very quietly. It sounds as though he were only now beginning to reconcile his guilt with his own conscience. Sylvain almost laughs. Dedue, too, is kind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Alive</em> might be overstating it,” he says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>iv.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And then Rodrigue Fraldarius dies so Dimitri <em>can</em> actually come alive again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s almost unsurprising, that the toll for their prince’s soul has to be paid in blood. The sun slowly sets on them, dyeing the sky a similar shade of red, and by nightfall, Duke Fraldarius has gone well and truly cold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It rains throughout the night, as though the heavens themselves were weeping for their loss. They leave their march back to Garreg Mach for the morning, and lay out Rodrigue in the most dignified manner possible, given their circumstances. Mercedes softly offers a prayer, Felix runs, Dimitri runs farther, and the Professor gives chase.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rest of them remain at camp, and sometime during the night, as the rain eases off to a drizzle, Sylvain and Dedue set out to dispose of the body of a murderous girl left unaccounted for. Gilbert surmised she might have been a Bergliez—the younger sister to a general who had preceded her in death.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It ultimately doesn’t matter. The rain rolls off her cold, pale skin the same as any other corpse. She is limp and heavy between them as they heft her towards a ravine. And hard as carrying her might be, she <em>falls </em>easily.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This close to Gronder, the Bergliez girl finds her resting place on familiar soil at least. It still strikes Sylvain as somewhat cruel. Somewhat terrifying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Taking her back to the monastery,” Dedue begins, quiet and even, rumbling like subtle thunder, “would not have made anyone happier. I do not imagine the Empire would have claimed her.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain’s mouth is bone dry amidst the rain. “We didn’t have to leave her dead in a ditch to be eaten by wolves, though,” he says, lightly, like it’s a joke.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dedue’s voice is firm when he replies, “After making an attempt on His Highness’ life, this is a greater mercy than she is deserving of.” The raindrops plink on his armour. “I have no pity for her.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s something terrifying about Dedue, too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain purses his lips. “Do you think...” he begins, and trails off. It’s hard to see much in the darkness, but Dedue seems to be listening intently, back straight. <em>Do you think vengefulness finally came to bite Dimitri in the ass?</em> he desperately wants to ask. <em>Do you think the Empire would be tossing him down there instead, had things gone just a bit differently? Where would that leave us?</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>But these are not questions to ask Dedue, of all people. Maybe he will bring them up with Felix, when it stops being the insensitive thing to do.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rain falls on, and Sylvain doesn’t finish his question. Instead, he stares down the dark ravine as if he was waiting for something. He half expects the Bergliez girl to come crawling back up. Perhaps all the spite stored in her small body is enough to miraculously revive her. Make her into one of Dimitri’s heartless, murderous ghosts. If she grabbed at Sylvain’s ankles, could she pull him back down with her? Would he even think to fight her?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We should head back to camp, Sylvain,” says Dedue, eventually. The rain is getting heavier again, and he’s right. He’s right, and yet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And yet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>v.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s something genuinely human about Dimitri again, after that.</p>
<p><br/>
Sylvain feels like his insides have been freshly scraped out, but their prince finally dares to stand before his people again—one-eyed, filthy, and with tears streaming down his face. And he’s hopeful. <em>Goddess</em>, he’s hopeful, because the people looking up to him remind him how hope looks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And to them, hope looks an awful lot like Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is hope that has him struggle to rekindle his humanity, bit by bit. He spends days tracking down the people close to him around the monastery, always keeping his head bowed and voice low as he apologises and, eventually, tentatively speaks to them as one would with old friends. It’s as amusing as it is sad to watch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Eventually, he seeks out Sylvain in one of the many courtyards. Someone has chopped off some of his hair since Sylvain last saw him, and he doesn’t reek anymore, either. It seems like a miracle, after all these months.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sylvain, may I have a moment of your time?” he asks, shoulders curled inward, in a clear attempt to make himself look small.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain almost laughs. “Of course, Your Highness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri smiles—a small, wobbly little thing. “Thank you,” he says. His tone is close to the regal cadence from their childhood. It feels almost nostalgic.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, how can I help you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The prince sighs. He is pale—not in the way a ghost is. Not in the way a corpse is. Goddess knows Sylvain has seen his fill of jaundiced, bruised bodies lately. By comparison, Dimitri only looks exhausted, and isn’t that a good look on him for a change?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sylvain, I must apologise to you,” he says. “As must I to everyone else, of course. You understand my meaning.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I do, but... I’m the last one who needs your apologies, Your Highness,” Sylvain replies. It comes out a little dry, almost enough to make him want to cough. Dimitri frowns, looks agonised at hearing Sylvain dismiss him so.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He straightens up, squares his shoulders. Emphatically, he says, “I disagree.” Whether his bearing is animalistic or kingly in nature, Sylvain can’t tell. “Words cannot make up for everything I’ve done, or for what I’ve put all of you through. Believe me, I am more than aware of this. But even if this is mere lip service, I want to think of it as a starting point.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And then, curiously, Dimitri reaches for Sylvain’s bare wrist. He slowly curls his fingers around it with a measured, deliberate gentleness. “Whether you need it or not, I still think you <em>deserve</em> an apology. If only as much as everyone else.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I got the gauntlet fixed,” Sylvain replies.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So you did.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain sighs. He wants to run a hand through his hair, but finds one of them inconveniently held down. “Listen, Your Highness, let’s just focus on winning the war, first thing. Everything else can come later.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But—“</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did you apologise to Felix, yet?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri starts, then looks away, studying the caps of his boots and the grass. He dips his head in a nod. “I’ve lost count how often, quite frankly. And I still feel like it will never be enough.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maybe it won’t,” Sylvain agrees. Dimitri’s gaze snaps back to him, the hand around his wrist clenching. His eye is wide, with something wretched and hungry boiling beneath the surface. A gluttony for punishment. “But you know how he is—actions mean more to him than words do.  So <em>show</em> him that you mean it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri suddenly drops—slaps away—his wrist as if it had burned him. “And then what, Sylvain?” he asks. “Is that what you’re asking of me as well? How would I even go about that? How does one show repentance?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s not—listen,” Sylvain says, holding back a groan. “No one is asking you to spend the rest of your days between self-flagellation and martyrdom. Just... win this war. Show everyone who sided with you that they didn’t fight for nothing. That’s all you have to do, really.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And the throne?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s not a doubt in Sylvain’s mind that Dimitri will ascend it. Out of a sense of duty, or because people push him into it, he doesn’t know, but—he will. “You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it,” is what he says, though.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri seems to relish in the ambiguity. His eye slips shut. “Very well,” he replies. <em>Hums</em>. Sylvain thinks that’s the end of that, but his prince proves him wrong. “Rodrigue would have liked to see me coronated, certainly.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sure he would have. And maybe Felix would agree, though he’d never admit it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri laughs, soft and rumbling. The ghost of Duke Fraldarius seems to hang about him much more lightly than the rest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Dimitri’s blinks his eye open and he looks at Sylvain, it’s with a level of fondness that almost catches him off guard. “I think we went quite off track, Sylvain,” he says. “I came here to apologise to you, and yet...”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter, Your Highness. Really.” And because Dimitri looks almost sceptical, he adds, “I mean it. You might not realise it, but I think I’m more willing to forgive you after this than I would have been after nothing but an apology.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Very well, then,” concedes Dimitri. He straightens up, rolls back his shoulders. He stands about as tall as Sylvain these days, but wears the height much more imposingly. Kingly. “I suppose I will have to lead our troops to victory, then. Just to be assured your forgiveness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That sounds suspiciously like a joke, albeit a bad one. Sylvain still laughs at it. “I wouldn’t forgive you if you didn’t, that much is true.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri smiles. “Thank you, in any case,” he says. Then, looking around, pretending—endearingly badly—to be busy, all of a sudden, he adds, “I unfortunately have a lot to catch up on, so if you’ll excuse me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain waves a hand, dismissive. “Off you go,” he says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And the <em>prince</em> bows to <em>him</em>, just by a few angles, before he turns on his heel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>vi.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Pegasus Moon in Fhirdiad is freezing, but it feels like spring compared to Gautier.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rime covers even sunny days until nightfall, and nights are almost endless in Fódlan’s North, even though the city’s lights make a valiant effort to stain the pitch blackness of the sky a bruised orange. A few lamps and torches around the castle remain lit until morning, still. By their humble light, guardsmen and knights brave the cold without as much as a complaint.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain is not nearly as brave—a mere political visitor, who only stays at the capital to play nice with court and king when negotiations with Sreng slow, who only visits when his father wants him out of his hair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He walks about the courtyards in the dark, where snow is piled as high as his calves. But he’s wearing his sturdy travel boots, laced up almost all the way to his knees, and the crunching of the snow below his feet feels like home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s how the ever busy king of the united Fódlan finds him—standing knee-deep in the snow, bundled up in furs over his relatively humble travel gear. Sylvain doesn’t expect him, but then, in a way, he does. Dimitri is awfully used to haunting ancient halls.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I see you couldn’t be bothered to announce your arrival personally.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain grins. He turns to face his king. “I had a lot of excess energy after being on the road for so long, Your Majesty.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If they hadn’t known each other for the better part of their lives, perhaps Dimitri would reply with something other than a shake of his head and a vague huff of laughter. But as it is, he only steps into the snow—briefly, disdainfully looking at his feet as though he were surprised it is <em>wet</em>—and then proceeds to step into the holes of Sylvain’s tracks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A twin set of torches tries to illuminate the entire courtyard, but their soft yellow glow is not nearly enough to drive off the darkness of the night. Dimitri comes to stand before Sylvain, looking disgruntled in soaked shoes and dishevelled regalia.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps the faint light hides some of his tiredness, but he looks good. Healthy. <em>Alive</em>. Sylvain smiles at him, tilting his head. “Are you without Dedue tonight?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri nods. “I promised him I would look for you, then turn in for the night,” he says. “I wish he would stop his constant fretting, one of these days.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“To be fair, I’m sure lots of people are out for your life,” Sylvain replies.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dimitri laughs, like it’s a joke, and well. Enough of that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain roughly yanks his king into a crushing hug, because he can do that, what with them having known each other for the better part of their lives. Dimitri goes stiff against him, as he always does, before returning the embrace even more ferociously.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’d like to announce that I have arrived healthy and whole, Your Majesty,” he says into the fur trim of Dimitri’s collar, and Dimitri laughs again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>the dimivain brainrot is way too real, i swear this ship snuck up on me out of the blue and now it's, like, my three houses otp somehow????<br/>i swear i didn't mean to angst to much, but corona uni is not good my dudes!!!! i wrote this while procrastinating on writing a report for my market analysis project, actually, but like. one day, i'll write some gross fluff for them. disgusting dimivain. absolutely saccharine. :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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